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Kenneth J. Gergen and Tojo Joseph ThatchenkeryOrganization Science as Social Construction: Postmodern Potentials

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10.1177/0021886304263860ARTICLETHE JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIORAL SCIENCEJune 2004Gergen, Thatchenkery / POSTMODERN POTENTIALS

Organization Science as Social ConstructionPostmodern Potentials

Kenneth J. GergenSwarthmore College

Tojo Joseph ThatchenkeryGeorge Mason University

We critically examine three major assumptions of modernist organization science: ratio-nal agency, empirical knowledge, and language as representation. With these assump-tions problematized, we are positioned for a postmodern turn in the discipline. From apostmodern standpoint, we are moved to replace rational agency with communal ratio-nality, empirical knowledge with social construction, and language as representationwith language as action. Outcomes for an organization science place special emphasis onreconstructing and enriching the aims and methods of research and on critical reflection,generative theorizing, and scholarly action within organizations.

There is broad agreement that, at least within the Western world, the greater part ofthe present century has been dominated by an interlocking array of conceptions thatretrospectivelymay be termed modernist. These conceptions, in turn, are related tovarious techno-material conditions, undergird many forms of institutional life, andinform a broad array of cultural practicesfor example, within literature, art, archi-tecture, and industry. Analysts focus on differing aspects of this period, often using theterm modernity to emphasize a composite of technological, economic, and institu-

228

Kenneth J. Gergen is Mustin Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Swarthmore College.

Tojo Joseph Thatchenkery is an assistant professor in the Program on Social and Organizational Learning atGeorge Mason University.

THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, Vol. 40 No. 2, June 2004 228-249DOI: 10.1177/0021886304263860 2004 NTL Institute

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tional features (Giddens, 1990; Jameson, 1984) and modernism to speak of intellec-tual and cultural patternings (Frascina & Harrison, 1982; Levenson, 1984). Althoughunanimity of characterization is far from complete, there is also a general recognitionthat this interrelated set of modernist beliefs is slowly losing its commanding sense ofvalidity. This consciousness of disjunction is variously indexed by writings on thedemise of history (Fukuyama, 1992), nature (McKibben, 1989), the individual(Ashley, 1990), coherent identity (Gergen, 1991), objective representation (Marcus &Fisher, 1986), empirical psychology (Parker & Shotter, 1990), literary theory (de Man,1986), and philosophic foundations (Rorty, 1979). These and other works examine thepitfalls and potentials of life in a postmodern context (Gergen, 1991; Pfohl, 1992).

Drawing sustenance from Robert Coopers (Cooper & Burrell, 1988) volatile cri-tiques of the systemic orientation of modern organization theory, one pauses to con-sider organization science itself. For the very theoretical suppositions under attack inCoopers work are wedded to a body of interlocking beliefs concerning organizationscience as a knowledge-generating discipline. If the theoretical premises are placed inquestion, so by implication are the metatheoretical commitments from which thesepremises spring. In the present offering, we shall first consider prominent ways inwhich traditional organization science is rooted in modernist assumptions, along withseveral major threats that postmodern thought poses for such assumptions. Moreimportantly, given the waning of the modernist tradition, we must ask what post-modern thought can offer as an alternative conception of organization science. Arepostmodern critiques simply nihilistic, as many believe? As we shall propose, certainarguments within the postmodern dialogues, when properly extended, yield a promis-ing vision of future organization science. After developing these arguments, we shallexplore several significant implications and illustrate their potential in ongoing work.

MODERNISM AND THE FORMATIONOF ORGANIZATION SCIENCE

To appreciate the emerging elements of postmodern thought, let us first isolate keypresumptions underlying organization science in the modernist frame. More broadly,this is to articulate a number of the constitutive beliefs that have defined the very char-acter of organization scienceits major forms of research, its theoretical commit-ments, and its practices within the workplace. In effect, the implications of thesebeliefs have been evidenced in virtually every corner of the disciplinefrom the class-room to the research site, forms of publication, theoretical content, and the disposi-tions carried by specialists into organizations themselves. Although there is much tobe said about science in the modernist mold, we shall confine ourselves here to severalpresumptions of relevance to future developments.

The Rational Agent

As most scholars agree, modernist thought in the present century has importantroots in the Enlightenment (the rise from the dark or medieval ages), a period

Gergen, Thatchenkery / POSTMODERN POTENTIALS 229


when the works of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant were givingsophisticated voice to emerging conceptions of the individual and the cosmos.Although history has furnished many significant detours (e.g., nineteenth-centuryromanticism), Enlightenment assumptions have continued into the present century,fueled to new heights by various scientific and technological advances (attributed toEnlightenment presumptions), the growth of industry and prevalence of warfare (bothof which increased societys dependency on science and technology), and variousphilosophic and cultural movements (e.g., logical positivism, modern architecture,modern music).1

The Enlightenment was a historical watershed primarily owing to the dignity that itgranted to individual rationality. Enlightenment thinkers assailed all forms of totalitar-ianismroyal and religious. As it was argued, within each individual lies a boundedand sacred principality, a domain governed by the individuals own capacities for care-ful observation and rational deliberation. It is only my thought itself, proposed Des-cartes, that provides a certain foundation for all else. It is this eighteenth-century valo-rization of the individual mind that came to serve as the major rationalizing device forthe twentieth-century beginnings of organization science. The effects here are two-fold: First, the individual mind of the worker/employee/manager becomes a preemi-nent object of study, and, second, knowledge of the organization is considered a by-product of the individual rationality of the scientific investigator. On the one hand, ifindividual rationality is the major source of human conduct, then to unlock its secretsis to gain dominion over the future well-being of the organization. At the same time, itis the individual investigator, trained in systematic rational thought, who is bestequipped to carry out such study.

More explicitly, these assumptions have been realized in major conceptions of theindividual and the organization emerging from organizational study since virtually itsinception. For many scholars (see, e.g., Clark & Wilson, 1961; de Grazia, 1960),Taylorism provided the modernist model of organizational life par excellence. On onehand, it viewed the individual worker as a quasi-rational agent who responds to vari-ous inputs (e.g., orders, incentives) in systematic ways. Although shorn of the dehu-manizing qualities of early Taylorism, the general orientation gave rise to contempo-rary beliefs that management is a process of planning, organizing, coordinating, andcontrolling. Such beliefs continued to pervade organization science theories and prac-tices. For example, congenial to these beliefs are job enrichment, job rotation, jobenlargement, job design (Hackman & Lawler, 1971), and management by objectives(MBO) techniques extensively used during the 1960s and 1970s. More recently,planning-programming-budgeting systems (PPBS) and total quality management(TQM) are often conceptualized as input-devices used to derive the greatest outputfrom employees.

Similarly, the belief in rational agency figures in the conception of the ideal man-ager. Contingency theories (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967) reveal steps that the individualmanager can take to create the optimal balance between the organization and environ-mental conditions. The field of strategic management similarly rests on the assump-

230 THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE June 2004


tion of individual rationality (Thompson & Strickland, 1992). For example, expec-tancy theory (Vroom, 1964), the path-goal theory of leadership (House, 1971), andgoal-setting theory (Locke, 1968) are all based on assumptions of individual rational-ity. The seminal work of Herbert Simon (1957) on bounded rationalityalthoughrecognizing limitations in the human capacity to process informationis premised onthe assumption of individual decision making. Management education and trainingprograms are similarly developed to furnish managers with managerial competenciescrucial to producing superior performance (Lobel, 1990).

In addition to informing the view of the individual worker and the function of themanager, the commitment to rational process has also shaped the contours ofmacroorganization theories. It is this topic to which Cooper and Burrell (1988) havelargely addressed themselves. As they point out, The significance of the modern cor-poration lies precisely in its invention of the idea of performance, especially in itseconomizing mode, and then creating a reality out of the idea by ordering social rela-tions according to the model of functional rationality (p. 96). They illustrate thisclaim with the work of Bell (1974) and Luhmann (1976). Similarly, cybernetic andgeneral systems conceptionssuch as those championed by Boulding, Bertalanffy,and Weinerhave contributed to the rational systems perspectives of organizationtheory. As Shafritz and Ott (1987) point out, the systems orientation is philosophicallyand methodologically tied to Taylorism.

Finally, the belief in rational agency undergirds the self-conception of the organiza-tion scientist and the view of his or her role vis--vis the organization. At the founda-tional level one could argue that organization theory is the quintessential outcome ofrational thought, and this presumption grants to the professional theorist a degree ofsuperiority. In the modernist zeitgeist, it is the most rational voice that should prevail inthe interminable contest of opinions. And it is this implicit claim to reason that haslargely provided the justification for organizational consulting: The consultant, by tra-ditional standards, is (or should be) one whoby virtue of scientific trainingthinksmore clearly, objectively, profoundly, or creatively than the layman and is thus deserv-ing of voice within the organization. This logic is amplified by a second modernistbelief.

Empirical Knowledge

A second legacy of Enlightenment discourse is a strong emphasis on the powers ofindividual observation. It is reason, in combination with observation, that enables theindividuals opinion to count on par with those of religious and royal lineage. Thisemphasis is played out most importantly in empiricist philosophy over the centuriesand surfaces most vigorously in the present century in forms of logical positivist orempiricist philosophy. For logical empiricists (see, e.g., Ayer, 1940), only those prop-ositions linked unambiguously to observables are candidates for scientific consider-ation, and it is only the careful testing of scientific propositions that can lead to incre-ments in knowledge. Within the behavioral sciences, these views not only becamecentral rationalizing devicesplacing the behavioral sciences, as they did, on equal



footing with chemistry and physicsthey also stimulated enormous interest inresearch methodology and statistics.

It is within this soil that organization science took initial root. The presumption wasthat there is a concrete organizational reality, an objective world, capable of empiricalstudy (Eastman & Bailey, 1994). To illustrate, in the premier issue of the Journal of theAcademy of Management, William Wolf (1958) proclaimed, We can describe anorganization as a living thing; it has a concrete social environment, a formal structure,recognized goals, and a variety of needs (p. 14). Similarly, in his widely cited ModernOrganization Theory, Mason Haire (1959) discussed the shape and other geomet-ric properties of an organization, arguing that organizations have bodily propertiesand growth characteristics typical of the biological world. This concrete character ofthe organization was also evident in Talcott Parsons contribution to the first issue ofAdministrative Science Quarterly (1956). Here, Parsons (1956) defined an organiza-tion as a social system oriented to the attainment of relatively specific types of goals,which contributes to a major function of a more comprehensive system, usually thesociety itself (p. 63). In the same issue of this journal, James Thompson (1956), writ-ing about the task of building an administrative science, placed the major emphasis ondeductive and inductive methods . . . operational definitions . . . and measurement andevaluation (p. 102).

Within this context, it was the responsibility of the organization scientist to worktoward isolating variables, standardizing measures, and assessing causal relationswithin the organizational sphere. Thus, for example, Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, Turner,and Lupton (1963) proposed to analyze organizational structure in terms of six majorvariables; in his axiomatic theory of organization, Hage (1963) defined eight signifi-cant variables (e.g., complexity, stratification, efficiency, production effectiveness,job satisfaction) for the task. Warriner, Hall, and McKelvey (1981) have urgedresearchers to formulate a standard list of operationalized, observable variables fordescribing organizations (p. 173).

At the same time, this celebration of observational process makes its way both intotheories of the effective organization and to the positioning of the organization scien-tist in the broader cultural sphere. In the former case, an array of organization theoriesplaces a strong emphasis on the necessity for the organization to systematically gatherinformation, facts, or data for purposes of optimizing decision making. Most early the-ories of rational decision making, for example, were closely coupled with an emphasison empirical fact. For instance, Frederick (1963) pointed to the necessity for linkingstatistical decision theory and other mathematical decision making strategies to empir-ical inputs. Rational decisionswhether in organizations or in science itselfareprimarily a function of available information (p. 215). The emphasis placed on rig-orous observation within the profession, and its reappearance within its theories ofoptimal organizational functioning, also enhances the image of the organization scien-tist within the culture. If observational techniques yield information essential to orga-nizational well-being and the organization scientist is an expert in rigorous observa-tion, then the scientists voice is again privileged. By nature of his or her training, thescientist can be an essential aide-de-camp for the aspiring organization.



Language as Representation

A third modernist text shapes the contours of organization science. In comparisonto the stories of individual rationality and empirical knowledge, it seems of minor sig-nificance. Yet it is one that proves critical as we move to the postmodern context. Theemphasis in this case is on the function of language in both science and the culture atlarge. John Locke (1825/1959) captures the Enlightenment view of language in hispresumption that our words are signs of internal conceptions. They stand as marksfor the ideas within [the individuals] mind whereby they might be made known to oth-ers and the thoughts to mans [sic] mind might be conveyed from one to another (p.106). And it is this view of language, as an outward expression of an inward mentality,that has been passed across the centuries, now to inform organization science in themodernist mold. So deeply embedded is the presumption of language as truth bearingthat, until recently, it has scarcely figured in the literature of the field. Its implicit pres-ence, however, is everywhere apparent. At the outset, as organization scientists, wetreat language as the chief means by which we inform our colleagues and our culture ofthe results of our observations and thought. We use language to report on the nature ofthe world insofar as we can ascertain its character through observation. Words, ineffect, are carriers of truth or knowledgewhether in journals, lectures, books, orthe business consultation.

This same belief in the capacity of language to represent the real, when coupledwith the belief in reason and observation, also sets the stage for modernist understand-ing of organizational structure and communication. The effective organization shouldbe one in which various speciality groups generate data relevant to their particularfunctions (e.g., marketing, operations, human resources), the results of these effortsare channeled to the other decision-making domains, and most importantly, higherranking executives are informed so as to make rational decisions coordinating thesevarious efforts. In effect, the emphasis on rationality, empiricism, and language as rep-resentation favor strong divisions of labor (specialization) and hierarchy (see, e.g., theearly work of Rushing, 1967, and de Grazia, 1960).

The faith in language as truth bearing, coupled with a reliance on reason and obser-vation, also figures in the general assumption of progress in understanding organiza-tions and, thus, of building more successful forms of future organization. If the natureof the objective world is made known through language, others can reexamine andgive further thought to these propositions, the findings of this assessment are againmade available for others scrutiny, and so on; the inevitable result will be a marchtoward objective truth. Scientists shall acquire increasingly sophisticated knowledgeabout the nature of the world, be capable of increasingly precise predictions, and ulti-mately be able to build fully effective organizations.

In the formative years of the science, Rollin Simonds (1959) gave voice to this pro-gressive narrative in the Journal of the Academy of Management:

As [the science of business administration] develops . . . there will be more and more stress on statingrather precisely cause and effect relationships and on securing empirical data to substantiate or dis-prove these statements. Then the results of one investigation may be integrated with another untilvery substantial evidence is accumulated in support of a set of scientific principles. (p. 136)



In Bells (1974) terms, modern (postindustrial) society is organized aroundknowledge for purposes of social control and the directing of innovation and change(p. 20). Much the same view of scientific progress is projected into theories of organi-zational functioning. Through continued learning the organization will becomeincreasingly adaptive and prosperous.

THE POSTMODERN TURN

Most contemporary theory and practice in organization science is still conductedwithin a modernist framework. However, across many branches of the sciences andhumanitiesindeed, some would say across the culture more generallya new sensi-bility has slowly emerged. Within the academy, this sensibility is predominantly criti-cal, systematically dismantling the corpus of modernist assumptions and practices.Such critiques not only threaten the modernist logics but throw into question the moraland political outcomes of modernist commitments. Yet, although critique is pervasiveand catalytic, it has not yet been restorative. While faulting existing traditions, it hasleft the future in question. How do we now proceed? The question lingers ominously inthe wings. In our view, however, there lie embedded within certain forms of critiqueimplicit logics of great potential. Criticism, too, proceeds from an assumptive base,and as its implications are explored, a vision of alternatives unfolds. In terms of posi-tive potentials, we feel the most promising forms of critique are social constructionistin character. In what follows, we shall outline the nature of the critique and the groundsfor a constructionist vision of organization science.

From Individual to Communal Rationality

Whereas a faith in individual rationality lies somewhere toward the center of themodernist worldview, postmodern voices turn skeptical. At the extreme, the conceptof individual rationality is found both conceptually flawed and oppressive in implica-tion. Its conceptual problems are demonstrated most clearly in the case of literary andrhetorical movements (e.g., see Derrida, 1977; Norris, 1983). In major respects, thesemovements are pitted against the modernist assumption that rational processing liesbehind or guides ones outward behavior. The site of critique in this case is lan-guage, which for the modernist furnishes the most transparent expression of individualrationality. As semioticians, literary deconstructionists, and rhetoricians propose, lan-guage is a system unto itself, a system of signifiers that both precedes and outlives theindividual. Thus for one to speak as a rational agent is but to participate in a system thatis already constituted; it is to borrow from the existing idioms, to appropriate forms oftalk (and related action) already in place. Or more broadly put, to do rationality is notto exercise an obscure and interior function of thought but to participate in a form ofcultural life. As rhetoricians add to the case, rational suasion is not thus the victory of asuperior form of logic over an inferior one but results from the exercise of particularrhetorical skills and devices. In effect, there is little reason to believe that there is a spe-cifically rational process (or logos) lurking beneath what we take to be rational



argument; to argue rationally is to play by the rules favored within a particularcultural tradition.

For many scholars, the implications of such arguments draw attention to the pres-ence of broad and oppressive forces within the cultureappropriating both voice andpower by claiming transcendent or culture-free rationality. Critiques of the modernistview of individual rationality are most sharply articulated in feminist (e.g., Grosz,1988) and multicultural (e.g., West, 1988) critiques. As the critics surmise, there arehierarchies of rationality within the culture: By virtue of educational degrees, culturalbackground, and other such markers, certain individuals are deemed more rational(intelligent, insightful) than others and thus more worthy of leadership, position, andwealth. Interestingly, those who occupy these positions are systematically drawn froma very small sector of the population. In effect, although Enlightenment argumentshave succeeded in unseating the totalitarian power of crown and cross, it is argued,they now give rise to new and more subtle structures of power and domination.

Yet postmodernist voices also enable us to move beyond critique. For when thesevarious ideas are linked to emerging arguments in the history of science and the sociol-ogy of knowledge, an alternative view of human rationality emerges (e.g.,Feyerabend, 1976; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Kuhn, 1970; Latour & Woolgar, 1979). Con-sider again the system of language. Language is inherently a by-product of humaninterchange. There can be no private language (following Wittgenstein, 1963). Togenerate a symbol system of ones very own would essentially be autistic. Viable lan-guage, then, depends on communal cooperationthe joint-action (in Shotters,1984, terms) of two or more persons. Making sense is a communal achievement. Nowif being rational is fundamentally an achievement in language (or actions consistentwith a given language), as previously suggested, then rationality is inherently a formof communal participation. To speak rationally is to speak according to the conven-tions of a culture. Rational being is not thus individual being but culturally coordinatedaction (Gergen, 1994a).

From Empirical Method to Social Construction

Under modernism, observational methods enjoyed an elevated status. The moresophisticated the mensural and statistical techniques, it was believed, the more reliableand well nuanced the scientific understanding of the phenomenon. From the post-modern standpoint, methodology does not itself place demands on descriptions orinterpretations of data; findings do not inexorably rule between competing theories(Feyerabend, 1976; Kuhn, 1970). This is so because our understandings of phenom-ena are themselves theory laden, as are the methods used in their illumination. It is onlywhen commitments are made to a given theoretical perspective (or form of language)that research can be mounted and methods selected. The a priori selection of theoriesthus determines in large measure the outcomes of the researchwhat may be said atits conclusion. To illustrate, if the organization scientist is committed to a view of theindividual as a rational decision maker, then it is intelligible to mount research oninformation-processing heuristics, to distinguish between heuristic strategies, and todemonstrate experimentally the conditions under which differing strategies are effec-



tive. If, in contrast, the theorist is committed to a psychoanalytic perspective and viewsorganizational life as guided by unconscious dynamics, then issues of symbolicauthority and unconscious desires become research realities. Projective devices mightserve as the favored research methods. The former research would never reveal arepressed wish, and the latter would never discover a cognitive heuristic. Eachwould find the others methods similarly specious. To speak, then, of the organiza-tional system, leadership styles, or causal effects is to draw selectively from theimmense repository of sayings (or writings) that constitute a particular culturaltradition.

The present arguments are most fully developed in social constructionist scholar-ship, that is, writings attempting to vivify the sociocultural processes operating to pro-duce various pictures of realityboth scientific and quotidian. Social construction-ist offerings are now emerging across the full emancipatory spectrum, and they singleout various aspects of the taken-for-granted worldthe existence of a cold war or aspace race or a spectrum of the academyincluding organization science (seeAstley, 1985; Gergen, 1994a; Thatchenkery, 1992). Such writings are both emanci-patory and expository. For example, they attempt to demonstrate the socially con-structed character of the distinction between genders and the existence of mental ill-ness or addiction. The intent is to show, in Batesons terms, that the map is not theterritory and thereby free us from the grip of traditional intelligibilities; they invitealternative formulations, the creation of new and different realities. In theirexpository role, such writings also attempt to elucidate the processes by which vari-ous rationalities and realities are created. They sensitize us to our participation in con-stituting our world, thus emphasizing our potential for communally organized changein understandingand thus action.

Language as Social Action

Because, for the postmodernist, language is the child of cultural process, it followsthat ones descriptions of the world are not outward manifestations or projections of amental mirrorthat is, reports on ones private observations or perceptions. Sci-entific reports are not mirrors that reflect our observations of what there is. Yet, if themodernist view of language as a picturing device is eschewed, in what manner can it bereplaced? It is in the latter works of Wittgenstein that the major answer is to be located.As Wittgenstein (1963) proposed, language gains its meaning not from its mental orsubjective underpinnings but from its use in action (language games). Or, againemphasizing the significant place of human relatedness in postmodern writings, lan-guage gains its meaning within organized forms of interaction. To tell the truth, onthis account, is not to furnish an accurate picture of what actually happened but toparticipate in a set of social conventions, a way of putting things sanctioned within agiven form of life. To be objective is to play by the rules of a given tradition.

More broadly, this is to say that language for the postmodernist is not a reflection ofa world but is world-constituting. Language does not describe action but is itself aform of action. To do science, then, is to participate actively within a set of subculturalrelationships. As scientific narrativesfor example, accounts of organizations as



information systems or managers as information processorsare made known to theculture, they enter the stock of cultural intelligibilities. They shape our modes ofunderstanding and thus our forms of conduct. To treat the organization as an informa-tion system and managers as ideally guided by a rational calculus is to favor certainforms of cultural life and to undermine or prevent others. We shall return to theimplications of this view shortly.

With this relational view of language in place, modernisms presumption of theunending accumulation of knowledge is thrown into question (Lyotard, 1984).Because scientific theory is not a map of existing conditions, then research does notfunction to improve the accuracy of scientific accounts. Scientific research may lead totechnical accomplishments, but it does not improve our descriptions and explanationsof reality; descriptions and explanations are, rather, like markers by which we indexour accomplishments. As research operates to displace one scientific theory withanother, we are not moving ineluctably forward on the road to truth; we areasmany would saysimply replacing one way of putting things with another. Again,this is not to deny that scientific research enhances our capacities for certain kinds ofprediction and generates new forms of technology. However, it is to question theaccompanying descriptions and theoretical explanations as in any way giving anaccurate picture of events.

To appreciate the positive implications of this condition, consider that traditionalscience strives to establish a single language. Scientific research operates to narrow therange of descriptions and explanationsto winnow out the false, the imprecise, andthe inconsistent forms of language and to emerge with the single best accountthatwhich best approximates the objectively true. For the postmodernist, the results ofthis effort toward univocality are disastrous in implication. The culture is made up of arich array of idioms, accounts, and explanations, and these various forms of talk areconstitutive of cultural life. To eradicate our ways of talking about love, commitment,family, justice, values, and so on would be to undermine ways of life shared by manypeople. In its search for the single best account, science operates as a powerful dis-crediting devicerevealing the ignorance of the layman in one sector after another.Love is shown to be a myth, families are formed out of the requirements of selfishgenes, values are merely the result of social influence, and so on. We are invited, then,to replace the scientific emphasis on the single best account with a multiplicity ofconstructions. Or in short, totalitarianism is replaced by pluralism.

TOWARD A POSTMODERN ORGANIZATION SCIENCE

As we find, postmodern critique operates as a major form of delegitimation. In thescientific sphere, it contributes to a loss of confidence in rational theory, in the safe-guards of rigorous research methods, and in the promise of a steady increase in objec-tive knowledge. As Burrell and Morgan (1979) maintain, there is a loss in the pre-sumption of an obdurate subject matteran object of study that is not constituted bythe perspectives of investigators themselves. When translated into the sphere of orga-nizational life, the outcome of such arguments is a threat to long-standing assumptions



of effective leadership, the scientifically managed transformation of organizations, thepromise of steady growth in organizational efficacy, and the capacity of organizationscience to produce increments in knowledge of organizational functioning. These areindeed momentous transformations, and if current discussions continue unabated, wemay soon confront a major evolution in the concept and practice of organizationscience.

Yet, although the vast majority of scientists and practitioners may see these emerg-ing threats as tantamount to nihilism, in the present attempt we have also located areconstructive theme. In particular, we have emphasized the replacement of individualrationality by communal negotiation, the importance of social processes in the obser-vational enterprise, the socio-practical function of language, and the significance ofpluralistic cultural investments in the conception of the true and the good. In short, wehave derived a rough outline for a social constructionist view of the scientific effort, aview that is congenial to many of the postmodern critiques but that enables us to pressbeyond the critical moment.

In this final section, we turn attention to the possible contours of a positive organi-zation science within a postmodern context. This task is informed by a range of writ-ings that have already introduced postmodern thought into organization sciencenamely the Organization Studies series on postmodernism and organizational analysisedited by Cooper and Burrell starting in 1988. Other writers such as Clegg (1990),Gergen (1992), Thatchenkery and Upadhyaya (1996), and Boje (1995) have alsomade attempts to wed postmodernist thought to management discourse. And in 1992,the topic of postmodernism figured in the annual meetings of the Academy of Man-agement (e.g., Gephart, 1992; Thatchenkery & Neilsen, 1992). These inquiries arealso complemented by an impressive array of related work in organizational analysis(Calas & Smircich, 1991; Hassard, 1991; Martin, 1990), the social construction ofleadership and organization (Chen & Meindl, 1992), and the language of organizationtheory (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). In an attempt to integrate various strands ofthis work, and simultaneously elaborate on the potentials of organization science in aconstructionist mode, we focus on four areas of special significance: research,critique, generative theory, and organizational action.

The Place of Research Technologies

Within the modernist frame, the technologies of empirical research (e.g., experi-mentation, simulation, attitude and opinion assessment, participant observation, traittesting, statistical evaluation) were largely used in the service of evaluating or support-ing various theories or hypotheses about behavior in organizations. Under post-modernism, methodology loses its status as the chief arbiter of truth. Researchtechnologies may produce data, but both the production and interpretation of thedata must inevitably rely on forms of language (metaphysical beliefs, theoreticalperspectives, conceptions of methodology) embedded within cultural relation-ships. Thus research fails to verify, falsify, or otherwise justify a theoretical posi-tion outside a commitment to a range of empirically arbitrary and culturally embed-ded conceptualizations.



At the same time, there is nothing about postmodernism that argues against the pos-sibilities of using empirical technologies for certain practical purposes. To be sure,there is widespread skepticism in the grand narrative of progressive science; however,there is no denying that the means by which we now do things called transmittinginformation, automating production, and quality control were not available inprevious centuries. It is not technological capability (or knowing how) that is calledinto question by postmodern critique but the truth claims placed upon the accompany-ing descriptions and explanations (the knowing that). In this sense, organization sci-entists should not be dissuaded by postmodernist arguments from forging ahead withmethodological and technological developments. First and foremost, within certainlimits, the technologies of prediction remain essential adjuncts to the organization.The prediction of team versus individual production on a particular assembly line,management turnover in a specified company, and white collar theft in a particularbureaucracy, for example, may be very useful contributions of research technologywithin a field of currently accepted realities. In the same way, we may continue to pur-sue what may be termed technologies of sensitization, that is means of bringing newand potentially useful ideas or practices into an organization. For example, variousforms of skills and competency training, on-the-job education, values clarification,and diversity training programs may have beneficial effects from a particular organi-zations standpoint. Traditional research methods may very well be used to produceresults that sensitize the readership to alternative modes of understanding. So long asone does not objectify terms such as team, values, competencies, and the like butinstead remains sensitive to the parochial forms of reality that these terms sustain andto the valuational implications of such work, then such technologies are not inconsis-tent with most postmodern arguments.

Although postmodern critique undermines the function of research in warrantingtruth and shifts the empirical emphasis to more local and practical concerns, it alsoinvites a broad expansion in the conceptualization of research. As we have seen,postmodern critique favors a constructionist view of scientific research. From thisstandpoint, rather than being used to buttress the theoretical forestructures of variousscientific enclaves, research technologies can serve a variety of social functions. Manyorganization researchers have already begun to mine the potentials of this view. Forover a decade, organization scholars have been exploring the intersection of researchand social action (see, e.g., Brown & Tandon, 1983). Gareth Morgan (1983) has spo-ken of scientific research as a process of interaction . . . designed for the realization ofpotentialities (pp. 12-13). Argyris, Putnam, and Smith (1985) and Schon (1983)argued for the inextricability of research and social action. It is within this vein thataction research (Torbert, 1991) operates to collapse the traditional roles of theresearcher and researched to realize the potentials of local knowledge.

Yet these are not the only functions of research within a constructionist frame. Vari-ous research strategies may also be used to give voice to otherwise marginalized, mis-understood, or deprivileged groups. Thus far, scholars have occupied themselves pri-marily with exploring the ways in which various voices are silenced. For example,Calas and Smircich (1991) have used feminist deconstructive strategies to expose rhe-torical and cultural means by which the concept of leadership has been maintained as a



seductive game. Martin (1990) has looked at the suppression of gender conflicts inorganizations, showing how organizational efforts to help women have often sup-pressed gender conflict and reified false dichotomies between public and privaterealms of endeavor. Mumby and Putnam (1992) have demonstrated the androcentricassumptions underlying Simons concept of bounded rationality. And Nkomo(1992) has analyzed how the organizational concept of race is embedded in a Eurocen-tric view of the world. Although this form of analysis is essential to a postmodern orga-nization science, innovative practices or methodologies are also required to bring forththe marginalized voices in the organization. Practices must be developed to enable theunspoken positions to be expressed and circulated and to enter actively into decisionmaking processes.

Finally, in the broadened conception of research, methods may be sought to gener-ate new realities, to engender perspectives or practices as yet unrealized. Thus far, themost favorable technologies for achieving these ends take the form of dialogic meth-ods (e.g., Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987; Schein, 1993). Dialogic methods oftenenable participants to escape the limitations of the realities that they enter and enablethem, working collaboratively, to formulate modes of understanding or action thatincorporate multiple inputs. As Covaleski and Dirsmith (1990) suggest, dialogicresearch often facilitates the generation of unforeseen relationships. Particularlypromising is movement toward appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva,1987), practices that enable organizations to share positive stories of the past and touse these in developing together ideal forms of the future. If research is understood inits social capacities, these are but a few of its possible functions.

Toward Critical Reflection

Cultural life largely revolves around the meanings assigned to various actions,events, or objects; discourse is perhaps the critical medium through which meaningsare fashioned. And, because discourse exists in an open market, marked by broadlydiffuse transformations (Bakhtin, 1981; Foucault, 1978), patterns of human actionwill also remain forever in motionshifting at times imperceptibly and at others dis-junctively. This means that the efficacy of our professional technologies of prediction,intervention, and enrichment are continuously threatened. Todays effective technol-ogy may be tomorrows history. In this sense, prediction of organizational behavior isakin to forecasting the stock market; with each fresh current of understanding thephenomenon is altered.

In this sense, we find organization science as a generative source of meaning in cul-tural life. In its descriptions, explanations, technologies, and services to organizations,the science is a source of cultural meanings. And, in generating and disseminatingmeanings, so does the science furnish people with implements for action. Its conceptsare used to justify various policies: to separate or join various groups, to judge or eval-uate individuals, to define oneself or ones organization, and so on. In effect, organiza-tion science furnishes pragmatic devices through which organizational/cultural life iscarried out. From this standpoint, two vistas of professional activity become particu-



larly salient. Here we consider ideological and social critique; we then turn to thechallenge of creating new realities.

Within modernist organization science, there was little justification for moral orpolitical evaluation of the science itself. The discipline attempted to provide value-neutral knowledge and assessments; if this knowledge was used for unethical or unto-ward purposes, this was not the concern of the science qua science. Yet, with thepostmodern emphasis placed on the pragmatics of language, organization science canno longer extricate itself from moral and political debate. As a generator and purveyorof meanings, the field inherently operates to the benefit of certain stakeholders, activi-ties, and forms of cultural lifeand to the detriment of others. Two forms of criticalanalysis are especially important, as follows.

At the outset, organization science can appropriately develop a literature of self-critique. Required are debates on the cultural implications of its own constructions.With the benefit of the various intellectual movements described above, this form ofself-reflection is already under way (see, e.g., Cooper & Burrell, 1988; Kilduf, 1993;Thompson, 1993). To illustrate, Boyacigiller and Adler (1991) have shown how Amer-ican values regarding free will and individualism affect conceptualizations of organi-zational behavior. The American cultural assumption that individuals are (or shouldbe) in control of their actions and that they can affect their immediate circumstancesand can influence future outcomes, contrasts with the beliefs of many other cultures.The works of feminist scholars cited above, along with those representing various eth-nic and political standpoints, also contribute valuably to critical self-reflection. Criti-cal-emancipatory (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992) and radical humanist (Aktouf, 1992)works further extend the horizons. The postmodern transformation not only furnishesa strong warrant for such work but invites a vigorous expansion of these efforts.

Simultaneously with the appraisal of its own practices, organization science mayappropriately direct its concerns to the dominant and conventional forms of organiza-tional structure and practice. What is to be said in praise of contemporary organiza-tional arrangements, and in what ways are they deficient? This is not simply to extendthe modernist quest for the most efficient, productive, and profitable organizationalstructure and practices. Rather, it is to inquire into the process of organization as aform of cultural life. To what extent are the existing modes of human activity desirable,for whom, and in what ways? In certain degree, comparative studies of organizationallife carry with them such valuative standpoints. For example, Allen, Miller, and Nath(1988) argue that in countries where individualism is highly regarded, actors tend toview their relationship with organizations strategically, whereas in collectivist cul-tures the individual feels more in harmony with the organization and the environment.In the American system, there is a strong belief in the power of the individual to make adifference, which is consistent with the fact that the average American CEO earns 160times more than the average American worker, whereas in a more collectively orientedculture such as Japan, the corresponding differential is under 20 (Crystal, 1991).Although such explorations sensitize the reader to possible biases in the taken-for-granted world of organizational life, in fact they serve as subtle criticisms of Westernmodes of life. As we find, however, the door is opened to far more pointed and unin-



hibited forms of critiquedirected both to the discipline and to organizational lifemore generally (Hoskin & Macve, 1986; Sinclair, 1992). At the present juncture,mainstream positivist scientific training provides very few resources for such explora-tions. Organization science has specialized in a language of is rather than ought, alanguage of rational judgment as opposed to an ethics of care (Cooperrider &Srivastva, 1987; Peck, 1993). In this sense, postmodern arguments also favor arevitalization of organization science curricula.

The Construction of New Worlds

One of the most significant and potentially powerful by-products of organizationscience is its forms of languageits images, concepts, metaphors, narratives, and thelike. When placed in motion within the culture, these discourses mayif skillfullyfashionedbe absorbed within ongoing relations. Such relations thereby stand to betransformed. Not only does this place a premium on reflexive critique within the pro-fession, but it also invites the scientist to enter the process of creating realities. Withinthe modernist era, the organizational scientist was largely a polisher of mirrors. It wasessentially his or her task to hold this mirror to nature. For the postmodernist, such arole is pale and passive. Rather than telling it like it is, the challenge for the post-modern scientist is to tell it as it might become. (See Chia [1996] on the concept ofbecoming realism.) Needed are scholars willing to be audacious, to break the barri-ers of common sense by offering new forms of theory, of interpretation, or intelligibil-ity. The concept of generative theory (Gergen, 1994b) is apposite here. Such theory isdesigned to unseat conventional assumptions and to open new alternatives for action.Through such theorizing scholars contribute to the forms of cultural intelligibility, tothe symbolic resources available to people as they carry out their lives together.

Generative theorizing is already evidenced in the steadily increasing number ofcontributions drawing from postmodern analytics to forge new ways of conceptualiz-ing (and challenging) organizations themselves. In these instances, theorists typicallyview bureaucratic, hierarchical, and rationally controlled organizations as constitutedand sustained by the particular range of modernist discourses (both in the academy andthe market). As it is variously maintained, because of radical changes in the technolog-ical ethos, information intensity, economic globalization, and the like, the modernistorganization is no longer viable. The new wave of postmodern and constructionist dis-courses are then employed as means of describing and creating what is often called thepostmodern organization. Much of this work is foreshadowed in Coopers (1989) cri-tiques of systemic organization and on language as an active force in simultaneousprocesses of organization/disorganization. Useful compilations of these resourceshave been made by Reed and Hughes (1992) and Boje, Gephart, and Thatchenkery(1996). Importantly, this work also carries on a dialogic relationship with the market-place and in this way acquires a constitutive capability (see, e.g., Berquist, 1993;Handy, 1994).

To illustrate, consider the sweeping moves toward globalization currently occupy-ing the business community. From the present perspective, organization scienceshould not strive toward a single best, most rational, and empirically grounded the-



orya grand or totalizing narrative. Rather, a variety of theoretical perspectives isinvited. Views of globalization as a post-fordist model of accumulation (Albertsen,1988) or flexible accumulation (in Harveys, 1989, terms) should stand alongsideaccounts of the global organization as post-Copernican (Peters, 1992) in its exis-tence within a network of collectivities. We may also strive toward new forms of artic-ulation, as in the concept of systase (Gebser, 1985). In contrast to the system, thesystase is an organization without an absolute center, around which orderas apatchwork of language pragmatics that vibrate at all times (Lyotard & Thebaud,1985, p. 94)is continually being established and threatened. At the same time, theseoverarching conceptualizations need supplementation by accounts at the more con-crete level of action. In pursuing this line of argument, Joseph (1994) cites the evolu-tion of a transnational nonprofit organization that went global during the 1970s. By the1980s, it became clear that its universal model of socioeconomic-cultural develop-ment could not be applied across cultures. Needed was a reorganization, whereby eachlocal organization autonomously pursued its own model of development. As a resultthe organization developed a remarkable competency to function as an internationalnetwork of locally disparate organizations.

The challenge of generative theory must also be qualified in three ways. First, orga-nization science has already produced a vast range of theory. From the postmodernperspective, these myriad formulations are not a deficitan indication, in modernistterms, of the preparadigmatic and noncumulative character of the science. Rather,each of the existing theories represents a discourse potentially available for many pur-poses in a variety of contexts. Generative efforts may include, then, reinvigorating thetheories of the past, redefining or recontextualizing their meanings so not to be lostfrom the repository of potentials.

Second, the move toward generative theory should be maximally sensitive to issuesof use-value, that is, how and whether a given form of language can be absorbed intoongoing relationships. When written in an argot suitable only for highly sophisticatedscholars, professional writing may be greatly circumscribed in terms of market-placeutility. There is a great need, then, for the rhetorical enrichment of professionalwriting.

Finally, the challenge of constructing new realities is not exhausted through thescholarly and practical actions of the organization scientist alone. Under welcomingcircumstances, organizational actors are fully capable of generating their own theoriesor modelsaccounts that can be more organically suited to their practices than thevessels of meaning supplied by the organization scientist. Although such local under-standings may lack the elegance and sophistication of official theory, in terms ofimmediate needs they can be more valuable. However, integrating new intelligibilitiesinto organizational life is often a difficult challenge, as illustrated by Astley andZammuto (1992). As they reason, organization science and practice are interdepen-dent but semiautonomous domains, each engaged in different language games. Asthey see it, organization scientists should be viewed not as engineers fixing problemsfor managers but as suppliers of conceptual and symbolic language for use in organi-zational settings. Required of the organization scientist, then, is an expanded means ofenhancing generative interchange between the organization and the academy.



Organizational Action

In certain respects, this last feature of organization science in a postmodern modeunderscores and extends the preceding. Our particular concern in this case is with theorganization scientist as an active agent within organizations themselves, serving, forexample, as consultants, organizational participants, board members, or evaluators. Inour view, it is this context in which the above emphases on the multiple functions andforms of research, critical reflexivity, and generative theorizing become most fullyrealized. At the same time, we view this relationship as principally dialogic, as a sitenot only for academic discourse and practice to percolate outward but for the dis-courses and practices of the organization to filter into the academy.

Rather than theorizing this relationship further, it will prove useful to explore a sin-gle case attempting to realize many of these proposals in practice. The account willhelp to demonstrate the potentials and limitations of the approach in an organizationalsetting. The action was precipitated by a cry for help from a large, multinationalpharmaceutical company. As upper level executives described the problem, overrecent decades the organization had spread into some 50 different countries. Consider-able difficulty was now experienced both in communicating and coordinating actionseffectively. Individuals across the various functions, and across nations, failed either tounderstand or appreciate each others perspectives and decisions. Tensions were espe-cially intense between the parent company and the subsidiaries; each tended to bemistrustful of the others actions.

From a modernist standpoint, it would be appropriate at this juncture to launch amultifaceted research project attempting to determine precisely the origins of theproblem, locating the specific individuals or conditions responsible, and, based on theresults of such study, to make recommendations for an ameliorative plan of action.From a postmodern constructionist standpoint, however, there are good reasons forrejecting this option. Not only is the problem continuing to change while theresearch and intervention are being carried out, but the very idea that there is a singleset of propositions that will accurately reflect the nature of the condition (or itscausal underpinnings) is grossly misleading. Further, to warrant this interpretationwith empirical data (true because there are findings) and to present the interpreta-tion as authoritative (as truth beyond perspective) is to perpetrate a bad faith relation-ship with the organization. Competing realities are suppressed in the name of ascientific justification.

Given these and other problems with the modernist orientation, we first establisheda series of generative dialogues in which we, the consultants, served in a collaborativerole.2 Interviewing various managers at various levels of the organization, in both theparent company and the subsidiaries, we explored their views on various relationshipswithin the organization. Our attempt was not to locate and define the problem withever increasing accuracy but to elicit discursive resources that would enable the man-agers to remove themselves from the daily discourses of relationship and to considertheir situation reflexively. The hope was to loosen the sedimented realities giving riseto the problem and to multiply the voices they could speak within their relationshipsand thus the range of options for action.



Although these discussions ranged broadly, two forms of questioning were com-mon across all: First, we asked the participants to describe instances in which commu-nication and coordination were highly effective. Drawing from Cooperrider andSrivastvas (1987) work on appreciative inquiry, our hope was, first, to deconstruct thecommon sense of failure (we have a serious problem) and, second, to secure a set ofpositive instances that might serve as model practices (sources of reconstruction).However, we also inquired about areas in which the managers felt there were specificproblems in communication and coordination. The point here was to tap common con-structions of the problematic within the organization that might be used to generatefurther dialogues (e.g., a rationale for we need to talk).

The second phase of the project served to introduce conceptual resources. Giventhe reasoning developed above, we see theoretical discourse (when properly trans-lated) as having catalytic potential within the field of practice. By introducing newmetaphors, narratives, or images, new options for action are created. To translate thesacred language of the profession into secular language, we sent letters to each of theparticipants summarizing their comments. However, these summaries were set in thecontext of a set of theoretical departures drawing heavily from postmodern organiza-tion theory. The managers accounts were used to illustrate shortcomings of the mod-ernist organizationits hierarchies, singular logics, clear separation of boundaries,individualistic views of leadership, and the like. Further, positive cases were oftenlinked to postmodern conceptions of organization, including, for example, participa-tory performance, interactive decision making, reality creation, multiculturalresources, and coordinating interpretations. In effect, by instancing a set of conceptsand images with ongoing practices from the organization, we hoped that the theoreti-cal resources could be appropriated for conversational use within the organization.

In a third phase, we attempted to broaden the conversational space. That is, aftersecuring permission from the various participants, we shared the contents of theirinterviews with other managers. These documents were circulated broadly in anattempt to (a) enrich the range of conversational resources available to the participants,(b) furnish a range of positive images for future use, (c) provide a range of problemsthat might invite further discussion, and (d) inject into the discussions a common lan-guage drawing from contemporary theorizing in the profession. We cannot ascertain atthis juncture whether useful discussions are indeed occurring; further exploration isessential. And it would surely be cavalier to suppose that these various moves are suffi-cient for altering the corporate culture at large. At a minimum, both management train-ing must be instituted and alterations instituted in corporate communication if signifi-cant change is to be effected. However, these various interchanges did propel intoaction a variety of constructionist assumptions, suggest new forms of organizationalpractice (technology), and foster an enrichment in organization theoryallfunctioning to invite new and transformative conversations.

Toward Catalytic Conversation

The present offering has first isolated an interrelated set of assumptions forming animportant basis for traditional organization science. By locating these assumptions



within the historical context of modernism, it was also possible to consider a variety ofarguments currently sweeping the academic terrain, arguments usefully viewed aspostmodernist. These latter views, while placing modernist presumptions in jeopardy,also offer an alternative vision of organization science, one that places a major empha-sis on processes of social construction. From this latter perspective, we outlined arationale for what we see as a vitally expanded and enriched conception of organiza-tion science.

Yet, these views should scarcely be considered fixed and final. On the contrary, thevery conception of a science in the postmodern context is one that emphasizes continu-ing interchange, continuing reflection and transformation. The present account is thusthe beginning of a conversation rather than a termination. Not one of the present argu-ments is without its problems. For example, Lyotard, has criticized contemporary sci-ence for abdicating its former concern with knowledge as an end in itself. As he sees it,knowledge is . . . produced in order to be sold, it is . . . consumed in order to be valo-rized in a new production. Science becomes a force of production, in other words amoment in the circulation of capital (1984, pp. 4-5). Is the present search for the util-ity of a postmodern organization science not subject to the same critique? Is there amore promising alternative? There are further questionsincluding, for example, theimplicit regime of values contained within this analysis, the possibilities of infiniteregress in argumentation, and the intellectual and cultural dangers of relativism.Clearly the conversation must continue.

NOTES

1. For a brief but relevant summary of these cultural underpinnings, see Gergen (1991). For more detailedaccounts, see Randall (1940), Berman (1982), and Frisby (1985).

2. The consultants in this case were Kenneth and Mary Gergen.

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